Baseball: The Top 20 and statewide rankings for the week of April 9

Mario Oliviera/The Star-LedgerHunterdon Central, No. 18 in The Star-Ledger Top 20, celebrates as Brett Bonn scores in a victory over Edison last week.

Someone once asked me a question about putting together The Star-Ledger Baseball Top 20.

They wanted to know what part of the season was the trickiest, as far as the rankings go. My answer was simple: The part of the season in April, May and June.

Baseball is an imprecise game with nonsensical conclusions. Tie a few of those together and watch the body chemistry changes that occur in the average poll prognosticator. The worst thing a pollster can do is to get cocky. That is a recipe for revenge by the gods who oversee the sport. I've never met them, but, you should know, they are out there and ready to punish.

No, it's not Pangranade. While that is a name from the Old Testament, we can not very if he is all-knowing, if not omni-present.

Try bragging about how good a team is and how "they aren't going away," then watch as they lose three in a row.

Now I'm not talking about the Top 20 below, because we know this one is flawless, at least it was from about 12:30 a.m. on Monday morning until the first pitch of the new week about 10 hours later.

We are often asked, "What's your criteria for rankings teams." This is code for, "My son's team is 7-1 and you've ignored them. How much do they pay you?"

Speaking of codes, putting together a Top 20 is kind of like decoding. Decoding the good from the great, the bad from the mediocre, the promising from the pretender.

Look at Group 4, for example. Is there a team that blows you away? Is there one team that says to you, "Oh, yea. This team is so legit." Well, we've seen some real good ones already, but separating them is going to take some work this year.

That's okay. That will take care of itself on the diamonds around the state. We've got a long way to go, boys and girls, so enjoy the mayhem.THE STAR-LEDGERTOP 20